The foregoing are only a few of the instances in which our attention was diverted from the real criminals; and, although the efforts of my operatives were rarely misdirected in any one affair for any length of time, still these false alarms were always a source of great annoyance and embarrassment.
CHAPTER III.
"Old Hicks," a drunken Planter, is entertained by a Hunting-party.—Lester's Landing.—Its Grocery-store and Mysterious Merchants.—A dangerous Situation and a desperate Encounter.—The unfortunate Escape of Two of the Robbers.
One of the most direct sources of information relative to the party was found in the person of an old planter, named Hicks, who lived some distance down the track of the railroad. He was in the habit of visiting Union City very frequently, and he usually rounded off his day's pleasure by becoming jovially drunk, in which condition he would start for his home, walking down the railroad track. He had been in Union City all of Friday before the robbery, and about ten o'clock in the evening he was in a state of happy inebriety, ready to "hail fellow, well met," with any person he might encounter.
On his way home, about three-quarters of a mile west of Union City, he saw a camp-fire burning a short distance from the track, and around it were gathered five men. They hailed him, and asked him to take a drink; and as this was an invitation which Hicks could not refuse, even from the devil himself, he joined them, drank with them, and danced a hornpipe for their edification. Hicks acknowledged in his account of meeting them, that by the time they had made him dance for them, he was heartily frightened at their looks and talk. He heard one of them say that they wanted ten thousand at least, but he could not tell what the remark referred to. He asked them why they were camping out, and one, who seemed to be the leader of the party, said they were out hunting.
"Yes," continued another one, "I am out hunting for somebody's girl, and when I find her we are going to run away together."
At this, they all laughed, as if there was some hidden meaning in his words.
Hicks described all of the men, three of them quite minutely; but the fourth was evidently the same as the second, and the fifth was lying down asleep all the time, so that Hicks could not tell much about him. They were armed with large navy revolvers, which they wore in belts, and their clothing was quite good. The tall man, who seemed to be the leader, related an account of a deer-hunt in which he had participated, in Fayette county, Illinois, on the Kaskaskia river, and when he mentioned the place, the others scowled and winked at him, as if to stop him. Hicks said that they seemed to be familiar with Cincinnati, Louisville, Evansville, and other northern cities, and that they talked somewhat like Yankees. He remained with them until about midnight, when a negro came down the track. Hicks and the negro then went on together to Hicks's house, leaving the five men still camped in the woods.
Other persons reported having seen the same party in the same vicinity several times before the night of the robbery, though some had seen only two, others three and four; but no one, except Hicks, had seen five. The accounts given by the persons near the train when the robbery occurred did not show the presence of more than three persons, though possibly there might have been a fourth. The descriptions of the suspected parties were quite varied in some respects; yet the general tenor of them was to the same effect, and, as no one knew who these persons were, it was quite certain that this quartette of strangers had committed the robbery.
In the case of the Moscow robbery, we had strongly suspected two notorious thieves, named Jack Nelson and Miles Ogle, so that my first action, on learning of this second affair in the same vicinity, was to telegraph to my correspondents and agents throughout the country, to learn whether either of these men had been seen lately. I could gain no news whatever, except from St. Louis, whence an answer was returned to the effect that Nelson was said to be stopping somewhere in the country back of Hickman, Kentucky. Ogle's wife was in St. Louis, and she had been seen by a detective walking and talking earnestly with a strange man a short time previous. The information about Nelson was important, since, if true, it showed that he was in the immediate neighborhood of the points where the robberies had occurred. The man seen with Mrs. Ogle might have been one of the party, sent by her husband to appoint a future rendezvous. The description of the tall, dark man, mentioned by Hicks and others, tallied very closely with Ogle's appearance. My son, William, was well advised of these facts, and, as soon as he had obtained the statements of every one acquainted with any of the occurrences at the time of the robbery, he was ready for action.